Tag Archives: wedding

Welcome to my chamber of horrors

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It’s no longer makeshift! That’s right, we went outlet shopping. Through some hideous twist of fate, we ended up in the Restoration Hardware outlet. I previously thought I had all the hardware I needed for my chamber of horrors: squeakless hinges, medical grade ganches, you name it. But wait til you see the glorious off-price contents of a Restoration Hardware outlet on a holiday weekend.

I got the most adorable wrought iron letters for spelling out the names of my captives. Then I was over near the lamps, and I saw a positively medieval cage, about the size of TWO breadboxes. It had a hasp and a chain! As I approached the table, some woman in suede driving mocs pursed her thin lips at me. I think my preternatural beauty offended her.

I turned back to Mr. H and called “HONEY! Look, this is just the perfect cage for my monkey skeleton!” He sighed and peered over my shoulder. “I think it’s a wine rack.”

“No, honey, I could totally use this for my monkey skeleton. It’s just what I need.”

The lady was just staring openly by this point, so we continued the banter about where to put the monkey skeleton until she wheeled around and skittered away.

Monkey Skeleton needs a house

Later, it was revealed that Mr. H didn’t know I was joking.

Mr. H and I went to a wedding, and this involved starting to drink margaritas at 10am. All weddings should be like that. I shot second camera, and that was reasonably fun. They had a tres leches cake! That’s THREE kinds of leche. Congratulations, men! Upon review, you were lacking a glitter cannon, but otherwise I give that a solid 5 thumbs up.

Then we went and test drove Audis. Sobered up and after a mint, of course. It’s fall, and we traditionally get the urge to roll our old car into a lake right around Columbus Day. The Saabaru is making a noise, and getting it fixed seems like it will be a trial. I snapped off the piece that seemed to be the problem months ago, but now it has a new noise. Since that one is Mr. H’s car, he is likely to drive it until it falls apart on the highway without noticing. The situation remains unresolved at this time, mainly because we can’t have nice things.

Then I decided to become a justice of the peace, and would you believe Massachusetts has RULES about this? I assumed it was a take a course, pay a fee deal, but no, each town is allotted a certain number of positions, and you have to apply, including a resume and the signatures of 5 prominent state residents. Uh?? Well, one of my neighbors is on the city council, and one is in the US House of Representatives, and a former state senator gives me a donut every year on Halloween, but I just don’t have anything else going for me. Oh. I once threw up near John Kerry’s house.

It’s easier to be a notary public. There’s no position limit (only your imagination), and you only need 4 signatures for that, although one must be from a practicing lawyer. All the attorneys I know pretend not to know me in public for some reason.

In conclusion,
in fourteen-hundred-ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Despite all the horrors that did accrue, he still never imagined the likes of you.

Dreaded bliss

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The other day I was reminded that it’s nigh on to time for my annual wedding. Those of you who’ve followed this site for a while may remember that I spent last summer adrift on my personal Raft of the Medusa, agonizing over napkin folds and ankle fat. And let’s not forget being tormented by relatives I haven’t seen in years and relatives I see all the time.

We attended a wedding on Saturday that was admittedly inspired by our wedding style (debauched, scroll down til it gets blurry), which was very flattering. Except they got a prop DJ, really, the Carrot Top of DJs. As we hid under the table during “Who Let the Dogs Out,” Mr. H and I realized that our greatest regret is not making our favor tins filled with candy wrapped to look like nuts read “Nuts 4 Each Otha.” Well, that and spending our wedding night vomiting, but it’s not like we hadn’t sampled the goods before.

So we’re doing it all again this year! I am on the fence between a Studio 54 theme and a country barbecue. Pros of the first idea: wearing a white pant suit a la Bianca Jagger, lots of drugs. Pros of the second idea: barbecue and Johnny Cash. Maybe we should just do both, on consecutive days. Or I can finally marry Lambchop, now that Massachusetts has come around on this subject. Every now and then when I’m frothing and flailing about starting UglyBoston.com or the window of this one dress shop downtown, Mr. H will sigh and say “yeah, you probably should have married Heather.” He’s so right.

-xxoo

Go go gadget gay marriage

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Well…it’s a start.

Massachusetts? Are you there? It’s me, Licketysplit. Why did you persist in electing Mitt Romney, who has gone on record saying he would veto pro gay marriage legislation? Also, God? Why are people still wearing open toed shoes in November? The cosmos is a baffling place. YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED.

In all seriousness, I am strongly in favor of gay marriage. None of that civil union crapola, although that’s a foot in the door. I was allowed to get “married” in Massachusetts outside of the umbrella of religious blessing (a whole ‘nother can of warms). Our actual legal marriage took place at some creepy guy’s house in Allston. We gave him $100 and our marriage license, and after subjecting us to a story about his own divorce and how his cat is his best friend, he said “I now pronounce you wicked married.”

The actual wedding day was another story entirely. It was full of love and joy and burning money and alcohol poisoning, and in attendance were several long term gay couples who didn’t have a shot at doing the legal bit by virtue of the wrong chromosomal arrangement. If the reason to keep marriage between a man and a woman has to do with morality, let me just say that I am weak of character! I enjoy deviant sexual practices*! But I still got a license, no questions asked. May I remind you that there are plenty of het couples who get married and still smush everything in sight. (We’re saving that bit for our five year anniversary cruise to the Mexican riviera. Oy gevalt. Equal opportunity emotional tearing down, please.)

I’ll be watching the development of this situation, and possibly standing outside Tom Finneran’s house in an animal suit. Tom Tomorrow is right, I should have married a goat.

-xxoo

*Er, I mean spooning, mom. Maybe a little closed-mouth kissing.

What would Martha do?

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Ugh. I’ve got a hangover, and I only just started drinking. No, not *that* kind of hangover, a wedding hangover. That’s right, we’re still not done with our thank you notes. So if you didn’t get one yet, that means we dislike you intensely, and we found your gift terribly unimaginative and downright insulting. Oh, I keeeeeed. The list is in fact alphabetical (we are somewhere in the R-S range, we can’t help being popular), and I was foolish enough to think Mr. H might actually help with birthing them.

But then again, I married someone with a limited vocabulary. Hey, I’m not being mean, it’s just the truth. If I were with a man as verbose as I am naturally, we’d never get anything done because we’d be too busy trying to out-conversate the other. Why, it would be like being married to Lambchop. We ruled out same-sex marriage as a possibility years ago. A) she wouldn’t get the donkey dingle graft, and my hips are far too slinky to carry it off, and B) we’d never have sex anyway because we’d each be too busy trying to put on more makeup than the other. So Mr. H and I, we compromise. I explain the big words, like “abutters” and “that other one from the other day he didn’t know,” and he makes dinner. But he does know enough to say “You’d better not be making fun of me on your stupid website.”

Now, Kitty Winn says that the secret to a good thank you note is to create your own custom attractive letterpressed notes, and also to lie, lie, lie. For instance, the truth is not always suitable for print:

“Dear Aunt Hilda,

thank you for remembering us on our special day. I’m sorry to hear that what you purchased to commemorate it is “too heavy to mail,” but I eagerly await the day you drop it off at my mom’s house several states away from me. I am sure it will make a lovely addition to her hall closet, be it a solid block of obsidian or a mastadon femur. I really hope it’s breakable! We’ll see you at Christmas.

kisses,

-Helen & Mr. Helen”

No, no, that simply won’t do. What am I going to say? I have no idea. But Mr. Man also knows enough to open a second bottle of wine, so I’m sure it will sort itself out. If you are in the lucky R-Z last name category, you can look forward to a sloppy, drooled-upon note in a few days time. But we ran out of the nice letterpressed ones, so T.S.. Note to self: next career — purchase letterpress!

-xxoo

I’m Baaaaaaack

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Your intrepid Lambchop finally has computer access because I have been PROMOTED. Here at the box factory, I have been moved from the floor to the FRONT OFFICE. No more tri-folds for me, its strictly applying glittery nail polish and winking at my boss.

Watching my little girl grow up and get married was both delightful and painful. Midnight wedding night saw me clinging to her ankle with a claw up her silky dress, crying “NOOOOOOO!!!” as she and Mr. H. weaved and wended their way to the bridal suite. Later, at home, I fell down the stairs. Now THAT’S a party!

So much has happened in addition to these startling achievements of Lickety and myself. With Mr. Lee dressed to the nines, there were 3am cabrides to Chinatown to partake of sashimi and sake. He chased me through a sprinkler on the last day this year you could still see green leaves on the Bay State Road. Beautiful! There were four new paintings; there was a party for the twins, a party for polka-dots and a party for Pac-Man (it was his birthday). There were some shows and a week straight of Halloween. All this really amounts to is me falling down the stairs in different colored wigs.

Licketysplit and I have often discussed the merits of being totally mad. Permanent lu-lu. I have made up my mind to push the boat off for good this time. I can contemplate shinyness all day. It came to me while I traipsed through Newark on a random Sunday, wearing bunny ears…

…oh there is more…

-xo

The Festival of Licketysplit and Mr. H

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Preening shamelessly

Wearing a pair of shoes

My coven considers starting a rumble with passersby

Lambchop and Mr. H strategering the wedding night

I am all their fault

We imported our officiant from Venezuela

Lambchop’s karaoke interlude

We flee

Screw a receiving line, to the bar!

The hahbah in Bahston

Free surprise fireworks

Loud noises are frightening to some

The Rev gets groomed

I come from a long line of showoffs

My sister likes to shake it too

Shoes come off

The evening devolved from there

Lambchop DOES dip!

Hours of drinking still ahead. No idea how we got on a plane.

Finis

Go East, Young Strumpet

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Ohmigod. Ohmigod. Best. Wedding. Ever. Followed closely by Worst. Honeymoon. Ever. Fair enough I suppose. Everything went off without a hitch at the dog n’ pony show, from the lavender-strewn aisle to the free, accidental fireworks display at the reception. The timing ended up being perfect; they went off right after the Best Man’s toast, and someone else across the harbor at another wedding paid for them. Everyone looked suave and mostly behaved. The relations didn’t even fuss about the total lack of Jesus in the ceremony. An open bar wounds all heels.

People were also excited by the beautiful 75-degree sunny weather after a week of nagging rain. Little do they know that Todd Gross and I killed a hog that morning and festooned the Channel 7 studio with the offal. Sure, you might think that weasel Kevin Lemanowicz is far more evil, but Todd Gross is truly the Lord Voldemort of meteorologists. It’s called Planning and Connections, people. Don’t try an outdoor wedding without a sacrifice. Full disclosure: I got the black magic idea from an old installment of Martha’s Calendar.

Anyway, to the schadenfreude-mobile! Once I finally snapped last Thursday morning, and desperately 411’d United reservations to extricate us from what we came to call The Arizona Situation, I made the connection that everyone loves a horror story. It was just a few clams to change our tickets, not at all what I’d feared. And we got cushy seats on the flight, and an upgraded room at the hotel we stayed at in Phoenix before our flight (once we explained we were fleeing our marital bliss like a band of scorned Israelites).  Flying on September 11 was a far more appealing prospect than remaining one more second in Arizona.

What, exactly were we fleeing? Long story short: Mr. H’s parents wanted us to use a time share week as a wedding present. So for the dates we wanted, we had our pick of Colonial Williamsburg, the Poconos, or a spa in Sedona, AZ. They’d been to Sedona before and swore up and down that it was “so sexy.” We feared the worst, but they were so positive. “Free is good,” we rationalized. “We like spa treatments, thanks to the Fab Five.”

Try spending a week with elderly German swingers in teeny Speedos. Sedona is one giant strip mall, lousy with kachina dolls and Indian jewelry and those horrid Guatemalan ponchos. We experienced rental car failure, abysmal coffee, painful massages, and dehydration/altitude sickness. I ruptured an ear drum, got my thigh sucked into a Jacuzzi vent, and lost my favorite sunglasses. Oh, and it turns out that Mr. H is terrified of heights. Good to know in advance that all the roads are basically hair pin curves along vast gorges with no guard rails. Space fucking madness.

Then there was the Spirituality and ubiquitous piped in new age music. My aura is as black as an Amex Centurion card. I could have told you that. Mr. H’s is a nice shade of blue though. At least we had the good sense to manifest our destiny right back to pleasant sea level Boston. Sure, we could have stuck it out and complained in Arizona for a few more days. But complaining from the comfort of one’s own couch is far sweeter. Mr. H’s barely year-old titanium powerbook literally exploded right after he’d downloaded all the pictures from the camera and wiped the card, so no photographic record of this “vacation” exists. Fitting.

The moral is: do not anger the powers of the universe by having the world’s most perfect wedding. Look what happened to Martha, after all. Wabi-sabi. Also: do not listen to Mr. H’s parents. I don’t even LIKE nature, what was I thinking?

-xxoo

Let’s get it on

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If I published a wedding mag, I would call it either Big Fat Bride or Fucking Crazy. The simple fact is that weddings bring out the worst in everyone. Welcome to disordered eating (not because you’re trying to lose weight, but because you simply feel sick all the time), the worst fights of your relationship, and every decision you make being scrutinized by your mother’s neighbor’s manicurist.

Today while accomplishing some tedious footwear errand, I got to talking with the shop girl while someone was packing my stuff up attractively. She’s getting married soon, and we were comiserating about the last minute details. She mentioned she wasn’t even on speaking terms with her fiancee.

“Ha,” I said, “that’s what no one ever tells you when you get engaged. Did the fight go like this by any chance? ‘You’re an idiot, what was I thinking, I hate you, Oh God, I can’t wait til we’re married so we can get divorced!”

“YES, so I’m not the only one! Don’t forget ‘What do you mean you told your mother THAT?’ and ‘I wish we were both dead!'”

So there you have it, ladies and gents. Premarital rage. Mike Tyson-style. Perhaps Mike said it best when he said “I’ll fuck you til you love me, bitch!” Ah, just the thing to put on the programs! I do love an epigraph.

In short: go. to. Vegas.

-xxoo

The business of strange people

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According to the ol’ Crate & Barrel registry, we are at t-minus 12 days until W-day. Please God, we mutter, make it come even sooner. Sure, the favor tins haven’t been dropped off at Teuscher to be filled with sweeties, my harlot dress is still hanging in an alterations shop, and Mr. H is a rugged wooly mammoth in need of a visit to his stylist. The florist hasn’t been paid, the programs aren’t written, nor are we exfoliated. But I’d show up in pajamas, my hair crusted with ape dung (aren’t you glad I specified just which kind?), if it would stop the constant flood of bizarre questions from assorted helpless out-of-towners.

N.B.: for the purposes of wedding etiquette, ‘out of town’ also includes people who live 20 minutes away and typically know how to help themselves. There is surely nothing someone who is in the throes of planning a major event would rather do than book other people in for manicures! This is the beauty event of my young life, now please do endlessly explain what YOU plan to wear. Not to worry, the photographer has been armed with a “do not commemorate” list, much as the band has their “do not play” list.

And apparently being married across Boston Harbor is practically a scene right out of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with guests forced to hop across from the mainland on floating chunks of ice while being pursued by slavering hounds. “I saw the water taxi is going to stop running, can I take a regular taxi?” We picked the spot for the stunning view of the city skyline, but had I known I would end up having to hire an amphibious assault vehicle, or heaven forfend, tell people to take the damn T, we might have made a different choice.

My standard answer to these nervous nellies is much the same as my code for living: “Ask the concierge!” Although somehow they have mistaken ME for the concierge. Is it my silly little hat? My wing tips or name tag? What gives me away, I wonder. A pox on them.

***

Deep breaths. True, all I accomplished on my day off today was fielding endless calls and emails (and eating 2 pudding cups). But I did have a swell weekend, thanks to the undeservedly fine weather. We were lured into South Boston by the jutting bones of the new convention center. After a thoroughly random drive, we ended up at Castle Island, loafing in the shadow of the giant fort and watching planes take off. We enjoyed greasy ridged fries from the snack bar and meeting friendly dogs. File it under things I never fucking knew about, and go see the Harbor Islands website.

Later that day we sprawled out in the shade in Columbus Park, full of orange gelati from the North End. Life is good even if having a wedding isn’t. But it’ll be quite the bash. We picked the single worst song ever written for our first dance: “I can’t stop loving you,” by Phil Collins. Relatives will probably wonder why all of our friends are laughing uncontrollably. Then we drink, straight on til morning. I hope someone remembers to put us on our plane the next day.

-xxoo